Wednesday, April 21, 2010

Story Review: Naked In School Punishment Programme


Recently, while browsing the BDSM Library looking for some new material, I came across a story written by "obohobo" entitled "NIS PP 5 Rob & Jill", which seemed more like a catalog number tha a story title. After clicking on it, I discovered that it was part 5 of a series, the "Naked In School Punishment Programme: New Laws", and I decided that if I were going to read and review anything, I should start with that. Obohobo is certainly a prolific writer. With over 81 stories, relatively good ratings, and stories ranging from short to novel length, Obohobo has me beat by far. Thank goodness our writing style is so different as is our sexual interests.

The first story of the Naked In School Punishment Series introduces us to Laura Matthews, a 16 year old British subject who runs afoul of a series of new government laws. Enacted by a misogynist regime called the junta that runs a bloodless coup on the government, a female dominated society is turned upside down. All women are reduced to positions of servitude and sexual slavery, and men are given almost unlimited power to punish and enforce the new laws concerning female behavior.

Wow. Can I live there? It makes being a British Subject actually look appealing.

Laura, as a mediocre student is brutally whipped in front of the school, naked of course, in a scene that is somewhat parallel to my own story "Corporal Punishment." Of course, the scenes move very differently and we are introduced to two other students who are whipped as well.

Writing in first person, obohobo takes on the persona of Laura, treating the entire story as a diary, giving us extracts of Laura's opinion and observations on the world around her. This in and of itself demonstrates obohobo's writing skill. It takes a lot of talent in order to pull of a first person narrative, since the nature of the writing limits you to describing things from the perspective of only one character. It discourages describing scenery, or the environment, all in favor of focusing on action and dialog. However, obohobo does a decent job in filling in the necessary details to provide suitable settings. The fact that the majority of the scenes take place in either a school or bedroom certainly help.

NIS Programme Punishment is a whipping fest, and that's pretty much all there is. If you like the idea of girls getting whipped with a little bit of fast screwing and anal sex on the side, then this story is for you. If whipping is of no interest, don't bother to read this story because there is absolutely nothing else there. In fact, the NIS Punishment Programme is fairly uncreative (the programme in the story, not the story itself) since punishment seems limited to strapping, flogging, spanking, and caning. How about a decent hot waxing? Or some nipple clamps? Or being bound and pussy whipped? There are a zillion other awesome punishments you can do to wayward women.

One of the other characters in the story, Mitzi Colburne, is brutally abused to the point of near death and Laura tells of Mitzi torment from a clinical standpoint with a bit of sympathy. Mitzi is beaten, not just whipped, but the author never lets us observe or see Mitzi's punishment, only giving us glimpses of the aftermath, her dazed looks, her bruised body, her eventual collapse and coma. So even the more extreme punishments are hidden from the reader (which frankly I didn't want to read anyway. There are limits.)

obohobo puts a lot of effort into creating a realistic world that tries its best to maintain a fictional reality to it, but still falls just a bit short under objective scrutiny. Going much farther than the old English common law of "rule of thumb", NIS Programme Punishment is an attempt to put women in what the junta feels is their rightful place. The laws are vague, difficult to enforce, and woefully out of step with what could be realistically imposed. But hey, this is fiction, right?

To be honest, there isn't much to complain about. The story was well written, with no noticeable errors or gaffes, and while the paragraph formatting wasn't standard due to the way dialog was delivered, it wasn't unduly difficult to read. And considering it was written in a diary like form, certain stylistic oddities can be overlooked.



But in the end, I also have to say that this story was like a really long slow fuck that is interrupted by a toddler before either of the participants even feel a sexual surge. Sure, I got hard. But it also didn't go anywhere. The climax of the story arch was Mitzi getting beaten half to death and collapsing in front of Laura. There certainly was no sexual climax and I got to the end of the story with almost the same amount of sexual tension that I started with. What's the point of writing erotica if you don't create sexual tension for the reader to "climax" with?

That said I get the feeling that obohobo really likes whippings. It wouldn't be that hard for me to imagine him feeling the sexual tension during every described whipping scene, and he even inserts whippings that have actually no point to the overall story arch and are merely added as an opportunity to sap another bottom. At one point obohobo even has a fifty year old woman who is slightly overweight get stripped naked, bound, strapped, and even caned. Um... huh?

So with that said I'm kind of stuck. How do I rate this story? Sure, from a technical perspective it's not bad. In fact, it's kind of good, especially when compared to a lot of the garbage that is frequently posted on the BDSM Library. But giving a story a high rating because it's better than its peers is a cop out. I don't do it. In the end, I'm going to go with an eight, which means it's very good in terms of internet fiction and even recommendable. But without a compelling story arch and such a limited sexual scene progression, I'm not able to give it a higher rating.

To be honest, I'm looking forward to the next story in the series: NIS PP2 Mitzi, which hopefully chronicles Mitzi's punishment and rehabilitation. We'll see. I'm at least encouraged to read it.

1 comment:

  1. It's 1984 as NIS, that's the point: Aldus Huxley believed a pleasure tyranny will always be a pain one, too boring for the enforcers.

    ReplyDelete

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